– The hosts, overall, were not impressed with the WWE’s use of legends on this week’s episode of Raw. They found some redeeming aspects of Shawn Michaels’s interaction with Seth Rollins, but otherwise were underwhelmed at the usage of such great stars.

– David Shoemaker noted that he feels The Undertaker is too old to be giving such dramatic promos. He feels that at this point in his career he should remain silent as many of his recent promos have been terrible.

– The hosts seemed to be in agreement on almost all of HIAC matches as far as predictions were concerned, but the Taker vs. Lesnar match provided a wide variety of opinions. None of the hosts seemed to be entirely sure of the direction WWE will take with that match.

Raw/Legends: Shoemaker starts off the discussion by noting how much more enjoyable Raw is when utilizing Hulu’s 90-minute version. Rosenberg continues by pointing out that he did not find WWE’s use of legends this past Monday useful/interesting at all. Shoemaker did enjoy the use of Shawn Michaels having a conversation with Seth Rollins. He says that his biggest criticism was that Hell In A Cell is WWE’s most dangerous event, and it seemed odd to have so many old wrestlers on Raw to promote an event of that nature. Shoemaker continues by noting this seemed to follow in line with WWE’s constant need to hype their past rather than promoting their future. Rosenberg wonders why Seth Rollins, as a heel, didn’t attack Shawn Michaels, who he should easily have been able to hurt after Shawn talked down to Seth. He adds that one thing that really bothered him was Austin introducing Undertaker and then disappearing from the ring. Shoemaker, in an admitted “second-degree hot take,” says that he believes Undertaker is too old to be delivering promos, and that every time he gets on the microphone his promos are terrible. He believes it makes more sense at this point in his career for Taker to remain silent.

Lesnar vs. Taker: The hosts agree that this feud should be more focused on the Lesnar-Taker hating one another with less dramatic promos from Undertaker. Shoemaker suggested using the UFC “scuffle” the two had years ago as part of the promotion for the HIAC match. Shoemaker says he can see this match going either way, but he hopes that this match doesn’t get schmohzed to start the next feud for either wrestler. The hosts agree that it would be very annoying for WWE to advertise this as the last match ever in this feud and then to not give a satisfying ending. They aren’t sure who will win because the last match in the feud had a weird ending (i.e. The Undertaker technically hasn’t won a match in this feud considering the last match had such a screwy finish).

WWE thoughts: Shoemaker follows the Lesnar-Taker discussion by pointing out that part of the problem overall is that there are so many different voices/directions in WWE, and perhaps the announcers have no idea what to promote. Rosenberg continues by noting the relationship between Vince McMahon and Triple H playing a huge role in the confusion throughout the company because you have two completely different perspectives in high roles at the same company. Both the hosts get the sense that WWE is a very confusing place to work because of the many different directions/competing interests throughout the company.

Erik Rowan: Shoemaker starts this discussion by wondering if anyone else got the sense that Michael Cole had no idea whether he should be promoting Rowan’s return or simply ignore that he was coming back after months off television. He notes that the circumstances may have made sense for him to be rushed back, but that it still felt very weird with the way it played out on TV.

Breaking kayfabe: The hosts discuss wrestlers breaking kayfabe in reference to the picture of various wrestlers in a Luke Harper shirt that Chris Jericho posted. Greg follows by asking if Rosenberg was more offended by Roman Reigns hanging out with the Wyatt Family or Los Matadores appearing without their masks. Rosenberg seems more bothered by Reigns interacting with people he is currently in a feud with. Shoemaker actually enjoys pictures like this. Rosenberg takes a brief aside to note that he feels like Reigns is getting over more and more as the weeks go by. Shoemaker follows by saying that it is not because of his speeches, but his wrestling and power moves are becoming more popular with the crowd. Back to kayfabe, the hosts feel like Bray Wyatt doing interviews/acting like an actual human is one of the worst offenses against kayfabe. Rosenberg also goes back to a point made last week where they found it odd that heels were wearing Rise Above Cancer shirts. Shoemaker attempts to explain this in kayfabe as the heels simply don’t care about their fashion choices.

HIAC Rundown: Starting off match predictions, Rosenberg thinks Kane will cost Lesnar a win and then turn on his brother to start a feud between the two of them. Shoemaker predicts that Lesnar goes over clean. They share a brief aside where Rosenberg tells a brief story of talking to Noelle Foley in which her father, Mick, says this is a good match for Taker because the stuff that looks good isn’t too hard on the body (being thrown off the Cell aside). Stat Guy Greg predicts Lesnar wins. Shoemaker worries that Lesnar going over clean is the easy way out and then the WWE may end up in a situation where they have no idea how to eventually beat Lesnar clean.

On to the Sheamus/Barrett/Rusev vs. Ziggler/Neville/Cesaro match, Shoemaker and Greg predict the faces win this one after the heels won on Raw this week. Moving onto John Cena’s U.S. Open Challenge, the hosts speculate that any member of the New Day, Dolph Ziggler, Cesaro, and Sami Zayn seem like interesting possibilities for the challenger. They hosts have a brief discussion of how great Kevin Owens has been. Greg brings up Daniel Bryan as a potential challenger, though the hosts can only speculate on his injury status. Moving onto the Kevin Owens vs. Ryback match for the IC Title, all the hosts predict Owens will win. The hosts then discuss the Dudley Boyz vs. New Day for the Tag Titles. The hosts discuss the logic of the New Day dropping the titles to the Dudley Boyz who don’t seem to need the belts to draw attention. Shoemaker admits that having the New Day lose the tag titles, but win the U.S. Title, would be funny to watch as it would mean three guys sharing one belt. The hosts don’t really make a prediction for this match.

The next match is Charlotte vs Nikki Bella for the Divas Championship. All three hosts predict Charlotte retains. As for Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt, the hosts all agree that it seems to be Reigns time to shine. The last match to predict is for the World Hvt. Title – Kane vs. Seth Rollins. The hosts all agree that Rollins wins, but admit that this has the potential to be a real mess as far as the finish is concerned.

Score and Review

(8.5): I really enjoyed this episode. This was easily one of the most succinct/straightforward episodes of this show I have listened to. The hosts spent almost no time going off on random tangents while also managing to have lengthy conversations about Raw and the entire HIAC card. I enjoyed that the hosts spent time talking about the use of WWE legends on Monday’s Raw. I, personally, didn’t find this past Raw to be the most exciting, so I was glad the hosts found a hot-topic related to the show to discuss rather than breaking down the whole show itself.

I also always enjoy when they breakdown/predict the upcoming PPV as it helps me prepare for the show. This episode was on the shorter side, so perhaps if there is a criticism it would be that they could have discussed some of the HIAC matches in a bit more detail, but for most of them I thought the conversation was of the appropriate length and all the major issues were covered. I think this episode would serve as a nice primer to a listener’s HIAC viewing experience as it was a solid 50 minutes of wrestling discussion.

Notsam Podcast – Episode 229: Jake “The Snake” Roberts Release Date: March 14th, 2019 Recap By: James Hayes DIRECT LINK TO LISTEN/DOWNLOAD From New York, Sam welcomes you to the show! What a great time [...]